As Florida Attempts to Make it Illegal, an Argument for the Sacred Work of White Discomfort

[Nevilledog]

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https://religiondispatches.org/as-florida-attempts-to-make-it-illegal-an-argument-for-the-sacred-work-of-white-discomfort/

In Florida, a state senate committee wants to make it illegal to cause discomfort to white people. This bill, which reads like a scene from 1984, is a doozy. You can, and should, read the full text of it here.

The bill purports to “protect individual freedoms and prevent discrimination in the workplace and in public schools.” But it then proceeds to define “individual freedoms” and “discrimination” in ways that are unrecognizable to the plain, historic meaning of those words.

Here’s a quick tour. The bill notes that the State Board of Education (SBE) “requires that instruction on the required topics must be factual and objective, and may not suppress or distort significant historical events, such as the Holocaust, slavery, the Civil War and Reconstruction, the civil rights movement and the contributions of women, African American and Hispanic people to our country.” So far so good.

But here are the next two sentences:

Examples of theories that distort historical events and are inconsistent with SBE-approved standards include the denial or minimization of the Holocaust, and the teaching of Critical Race Theory, meaning the theory that racism is not merely the product of prejudice, but that racism is embedded in American society and its legal systems in order to uphold the supremacy of white persons. Instruction may not utilize material from the 1619 Project and may not define American history as something other than the creation of a new nation based largely on universal principles stated in the Declaration of Independence.

The magnitude of the contradictions here, separated only by a comma, is jarring. The minimization or denial of the Holocaust is prohibited, but the minimization and denial of America’s treatment of Native Americans and African Americans is mandated.

*snip*

[alwaysinasnit]

1. I guess this is a tacit admission that many white people are snowflakes?